At first, CdVs were often used as greeting cards for a specific holiday. Later, family members and friends, previously having no way of exchanging portraits of one another, could now do so by having their photograph taken and having multiple copies made. No matter where a person lived--perhaps someone had already immigrated to another town or country and left their family for good--they could now have photos taken of other members of their family or friends before emigration, to bring along with them as precious mementos. These photos could even be mailed to anyone anywhere in the world where there was mail service. Surely these images would also find their way into the family photo album.

The very early CdVs were a bit wider than the later ones, which would fit conveniently into the newly created CdV photo albums, first produced in the 1860. These CdVs were often exchanged among friends or used as cards of introduction, collected, then put into these albums. Perhaps a person's portrait might have been taken as a sign of of that person's or their family's status or upward mobility, or there might have been an engagement or marriage. Families would be able fill an entire album with photos of their loved ones, from grandparents to their children or cousins. Perhaps they may also have included photos of their residence, or the farm or town in which they lived. The album may also have contained photographs of their visits to family burial plots that showed them next to the gravestone of a loved one.

In a sense, photography was the great equalizer. Before, portraiture was generally available only to the financially well-off. In addition, the earlier photographic product produced by such techniques as the daguerreotype and ambrotype had to be sent with great care in a case protected with glass, and this couldn't easily be transported or mass-produced. Being able to produce the CdV created great opportunities for the photographer with a bit of imagination and entrepreneurship.

At first, these CdVs were made very simply--smaller than a business card with perhaps the name of the studio or subject imprinted on the back of the photo--they were not very fancy. Not long after, the imprint on the back of these photos were made more elaborate as photographers or studios realized that they could both advertise themselves and their products on the back of the photograph, while at the same time creating a more attractive product.

The CdV was first developed by a Parisian photographer named Andre Adolphe Disderi in 1854. He received a patent for his standard formatted CdV card size of 2 1/2 by 4 inches (generally the size of the photo would have the slightly smaller dimensions of 2 1/8 by 3 1/2 inches.) By employing a sliding plate holder and a camera with four lenses, he was able to take eight negatives all at once on one 8 by 10 inch glass plate. This certainly reduced the photographer's production costs--each time the photographer would print a negative, he would be making eight or prints of the same photo at the same time. Disderi's method didn't become popular until five years later in 1859. In the United States during the time of the American Civil War, many soldiers would pose for these CdVs, wanting to leave copies with their families as a last photo of them before they went off to war. This also occurred in the countries of Europe, before young men would go off to war (or when they came home.)

Most of these CdVs, because they were so small in size, could not accommodate very elaborate backgrounds or include more than one, maybe two people. Some had a very smart business mind and realized that if only they could get famous people to pose for these types of photos, they could produce these images in great quantity and sell them throughout the world. It is said that CdVs were made of England's Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, and other members of the Royal Family. It is also said that those made of the Royal Family sold over 100,000 copies and compelled others to have CdVs made of themselves. Even Queen Victoria herself became an avid collector of these photographs! Certainly, because of the anticipation of profits, the photography business became quite competitive. Once very simple in design and content, the CdV was now made more elaborate and valuable, and CdVs made with the images of their favorite authors, actors, painters, heroes, etc. motivated many in the new middle-class to become collectors. There were many who also filled their own photo albums with studio portraits of famous people.

It was realized by photographers at some point in time that those who took the photographs of famous people, who owned the rights to them, could also make enormous profits. In England, for example, at one time the average price of a CdV was five shillings; mass-produced they would cost the photographer twenty-five pence for a dozen.

You can see in the photographs below that, because of their small size (you can left-click on any of these thumbnail images to see the fully sized versions), only one person, or perhaps a few people, if posed closely together, could be fit onto these tiny photographs. Usually the CdV was of one person, or perhaps a couple. Also, these CdVs were not generally photos solely of a person's face, but were taken as a full or three-quarter pose. The props used in these photos had to be simple: perhaps a chair, or a balustrade and curtains, or a column. As you will see, within a short amount of time the studio portrait grew in dimension, and much more variety was made possible.
 

SOME EXAMPLES OF CARTES-DE-VISITE

"Moisei Arenberg"
(standing, left)
and friends in
Kishinev (Chisinau),
Bessarabia (Moldova)
cir 1893
Tedesco studio
 

By 1890, the popularity of the CdV declined dramatically, and the use of cabinet portraits increased to about ninety-percent of the portrait trade. There were albums produced from 1867 to 1910 that held both CdVs and cabinet photos. These photographs could also be created in such a matter that the backside of the card could be made into a postcard, with room for a message, address and stamp. This was a sure way to encourage the taking of photographs that could be mailed to anywhere in the world.

Many of these cabinet portraits had the name of the photographer or studio imprinted on the bottom of the front of the card, and often on the back. Many cards or "photo mounts" were generic, and just had the words "visit portrait" or "cabinet portrait" imprinted at the bottom. Though these two terms were different, they were basically the same product.

Without any additional evidence, it is often hard to deduce in what year a studio photograph was taken. One might better judge the year by the costume type or the style of dress of the individual, rather than what type or size of studio photograph it was. It is also a problem to date such photographs precisely because a studio might have had some old, blank cards in storage (without photos mounted on them), that they may have possessed and not used for many, many years. So it is perhaps a good idea to have a knowledge of the different styles of clothing, e.g. those worn in the countries of Eastern Europe, if that is where the photograph was taken.

The cabinet portrait was popular until the early twentieth century when Kodak invented the brownie camera, with which people started taking many of their own family photographs at home.


SOME EXAMPLES OF CABINET PORTRAITS